Breathless (14 page)

“Do you love Mama?”

He looked at me, as if my words reached him very slowly.

“I have never loved anyone else.”

It wasn't an answer to my question. It didn't reveal whether he still loved her. Not even if he had ever loved her.

Just a few weeks later he packed his bags and left, and I was overwhelmed with the sense that I shouldn't have asked.

—

“Do you love Papa?” Mama was filling the laundry room with white sheets and underclothes. She answered as naturally as if I had asked if the night was dark and the mountain of washing endless. But she never showed it. I tried to remember if I had ever seen her put her arms around him, or he her. I couldn't recall a single instance.

I'd been born into the best of worlds, but I no longer lived there. When I was growing up the picture was complete, everyone was there and no one was going to disappear. Dangers were only things adults spoke about when they thought I had fallen asleep on the television sofa. Oil crisis and Falklands War and embassy bombings, inadequate safety at the factory, the risk of rain during the holiday.

Papa was the first. When he disappeared the balance was disturbed, and then things settled down and we thought that nothing else would happen. Mama's and Papa's brothers and sisters had all the patience Mama was lacking, shared the burden of me between themselves. I had taken for granted that they existed just for me, felt hurt if I could not join in, if a door was closed, took it as a personal insult that they had to go to work sometimes, without me. To belong to everyone is to belong to no one. It was only after the family started to scatter in the wind that I belonged to Mama.

The chain reaction had started, it was work and love and homesickness and a fish-gutting factory in Iceland that lured. Quick money—you could earn gold at the conveyor belt, if you could just stand the cold and smell and didn't need any sleep and could live on a shoestring for a while. The house became more and more empty. The fish-gutting factory, homesickness, and finally death. Mama's father died of chemical pneumonia. He had inhaled a corrosive substance at the factory and his lungs began to burn. He left his shift at the paper mill an hour early on the Friday afternoon and by Monday he was dead.

His boots stood in the hall the whole winter, waiting for his broad feet, were shoved back and forth among the others. Who was going to take them away? There were many of us who could have done it—but no one who wanted to. I took care of the broken pieces that Grandmother produced in a steady stream in the kitchen when things inexplicably slipped out of her hands. Grandfather's coffee cup, schnapps glass, soured-milk bowl—buried at the edge of the field behind the house, they came up every year when they were plowing, like a memorial.

Mama's mother died among the currant bushes. She'd half filled her plastic tub when her heart gave a double beat in a warning that was altogether too late, and stopped. She'd been a little confused for a long time, and since Grandfather's death she had been comfort-eating to the extent that her wedding ring disappeared into white flesh, in the end her body so unwieldy that she could no longer climb the stairs in the house. Why she needed to be out in the currant patch on the hottest day of summer with her weak heart, no one could understand. Least of all her doctor. Her death could have been avoided, he said.

But it cannot be.

The currants flew through the air like a bloodstain onto the layer of manure she'd just put under the bushes that morning. Grandmother in her frumpy white dress smeared with berries and blood and earth.

She had told Papa's mother that she wanted to be buried at home, and this wasn't home. It cost a fortune to get her there, so much more than if she had been alive. Papa's parents' last savings.

“A little while ago I was young, wasn't I?” Mama's face in the bedroom mirror was changed. It was still her face, but it was as if an older face had been pulled over it. I wanted her to take off the pale, lifeless mask that was not her. Grandmother stroked her hair, but didn't contradict her—she
did
look old, overnight. I didn't realize that such a thing could truly happen. When Grandmother didn't reply, Mama turned to me instead, as if I would be able to explain what had happened—where the stranger's face in the mirror came from.

Losing both her parents had happened so fast. As long as one of your parents is still alive your childhood carries on, I heard Grandmother say. When you're no longer anyone's child—that is when you realize what you've lost.

Then Grandmother herself became ill, almost without our noticing. Unlike Mama's parents, she died slowly. No visible decline. It was more as if she was dying from the inside out, her vital organs succumbing one after the other. In the end there was nothing left of her, the cancer had eaten everything, though she looked normal from the outside. The doctor had gauged how much time she had, and it turned out to be correct to within a few days.

When Rikard, the last of the brothers and sisters, moved to a hotel job in Stockholm that Marina had fixed up for him, it was almost worse than when Papa left. Now there was just Papa's father, Mama, and me. Rumors started to circulate in the village, but Mama had forbidden me to listen to them. It was something about Mama and Grandfather, a little domestic war going on, the causes of which only they knew. Love, hate, either-or, or both-and—just like turning on old taps and the water coming out ice cold and scalding hot by turns.

“I ought to move out for Lo's sake,” I heard Grandfather say from inside the woodshed.

“If you move, then I'll move.”

“But that solves nothing, Karenina.”

“Don't call me Karenina!” I couldn't catch any more through the thick partition wall before Mama strode away. Soon noises could be heard from the arboretum, Grandfather's black poplar, how she axed it down in a frenzied rage, with the strength and fury of a pig. Smashed it to smithereens, which she crammed into the stove that evening, piece by piece. A few days later she bought electric heaters for all the rooms, despite Grandfather's protests. One thing was certain: she had felt cold for the last time. This is still my house, I'm not dead yet, warned Grandfather. Mama turned in the cold light of late winter and stared at him. There are some people who must not die. He was one of them.

“Dead?” she said, unable to grasp this, as if it had never even crossed her mind that he also . . .

“No, not
yet
,” Grandfather said. “It is still me who makes the decisions around here.” It never had been him, of course—but it's true that it was still his house, and when that was no longer the case, then I would inherit, he said, something he had suddenly just decided. “You brothers and sisters can hardly divide it into nine parts, Katarina. There'd only be a window each.”

There was a time when we didn't know how there would be enough room for all the beds, crisscrossed throughout the house, but now the problem was filling the rooms, stopping the echoes. And then Grandfather started to talk about leaving as well, and that I had to stay behind so that Mama wouldn't be totally alone.

“Your grandfather,” Mama said coldly, “talks so much. Haven't you noticed? He claims that he's going to die too.” The word “die” flew from her mouth with the speed of spit. Grandfather wasn't even ill yet, but all the others had gone, so how could we be sure that he would stay?

However much I missed the rest of the family, what I missed most was Mama the way she was before the others disappeared. Now she, Grandfather, and I were the only ones left. I would soon be fifteen and no one could be bothered any longer about what I did.

C
hildhood trickled away and was gone, leaving only a few sun-bleached fragments of regret. Suddenly I was at an age when I read
Bonjour Tristesse,
read whatever I happened to find in Mama's bookcase. She must have lost her faith in books at some point in her youth, because all she had in her bookcase were from that time. In the absence of any revealing diaries that I could read surreptitiously, the novels were the only way I could sneak a look into that period of her life. A glimpse of the outlook she must have had then. There was the scent of pine trees, American suburbs, and deserted French cafés when I opened them and let myself be transported away. Lukas was jealous. Books made me unreachable even when I was lying right next to him in bed. He watched me disappear, but didn't understand where—still less why. Novels? There was nothing wrong with this world, where
he
existed, where
he
was waiting. He waited for me to finish, whether I wanted him to or not, lit a new cigarette whenever I turned a page, blew the smoke out over the book, looked at me.

I read everything I could lay my hands on. Books made time stand still, while the world was expanding. Everything is beautiful from a distance, like the river delta seen from above, free from the stench of rotting sediment and silt. Made clear and enticing like illustrated maps of inaccessible places no man can live on.

I read about the Chinese method of describing the passage of time, with what logical beauty it elapsed in their eyes. Instead of four clumsily measured seasons they talked about the slight cold, great cold, beginning of spring, rainwater, waking of insects, pure brightness, grain rain, beginning of summer, grain fills, grain in ear. Then the summer solstice that led to the slight heat, great heat, beginning of autumn, limit of heat, white dew. And then the autumnal equinox followed by cold dew, the first frosty night when the migrant birds leave Peking and the chrysanthemums are at their most beautiful. And then the descent of frost, beginning of winter, slight snow, great snow, until light's turning point is reached again.

September arrived with its long shadows, migrant birds, autumn moon. Virgo's month, my month, virgin, sapphire. We had never been so close together before as we would be when I turned fifteen. When I was a child he was a teenager, and when I was a teenager he was an adult. Soon for the first time we would both be on the same side of the crucial line. It would no longer be a case of exploitation of a child, Lukas said as we went down for what was to be the last dip in the lake that year—if something happened. “Happened?” Between us, he said.

There was something in the air, I had felt it for a long time, perhaps just a faint tension, a hint of unrest and change when one season crosses over into the next. Lukas had commented on my fifteenth birthday many times, that it was a dividing line, but between what? I had already been a teenager for two years.

“But at fifteen, Lo, no one's really a child any longer.” The imaginary threshold between the possible and the impossible, as if the borderline itself would make something possible that had not been possible before. He seemed to be imagining this. He had built up a sense of anticipation that made me also believe that in a purely physical way I would feel I had passed a certain point.

It was as if a sun had been scorching him from the inside the whole summer, plaguing him, parched and surly. To live is to wait. At least for Lukas, waiting for the snake to show its real face. It was the year of the snake the year I turned fifteen, which according to the Chinese calendar in Mama's bookcase meant duplicity and betrayal: sign no contracts, don't change the bedclothes, take care with fire, don't participate in legal proceedings, don't sell your soul to the devil, avoid open water and washing your hair, eat no peaches, only pay debts if absolutely necessary, avoid distress and family gatherings, inauspicious time to make new friendships, refrain from disruptive disputes and long journeys.

As the day approached it appeared that Lukas had forgotten all about it. No special plans and no questions about how I wanted to celebrate, even though I was always full of ideas.

“You know what day it is tomorrow, don't you?” I couldn't stop myself saying in the end.

“The Japanese national day, or no, wait a minute . . . maybe it's the world day for protection of the ozone layer—goodness knows how you're supposed to celebrate that.”

“I know you know . . . you're going to give me a surprise.”

“Hardly. I've got an extra shift at work to do.” He shrugged. We'd grown too big for having fun. Couldn't play games for evermore.

He had begun to work the night shift so that he had the house to himself while his father was at work. Lukas clocked off, rode home and slept for a few hours, and got up when Gábriel went off for his afternoon shift, the same time as I came home from school. The house was then ours until late in the evening, unless we went down to the pearl fisher's place. I did my homework at Lukas's, if I did it at all, while he sat and rocked on a chair, waiting. No matter how speedily I raced through it, he thought it took too long. That I went to school too often, read too much—not useful at my age, my brain wasn't fully developed. It was to be hoped that his brain wasn't either, I said, and how helpful was it to work every night in the chemical fumes of the factory?

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, only that factories didn't figure in my plans, and that being the case, school couldn't be given up altogether.

“What do you mean, not in the factories? You're not going to move?” Lukas looked utterly nonplussed. As if that thought had never crossed his mind.

I wait behind the gas station as he asked me to do when he phoned the evening before. After the night shift he comes past in the car I didn't know he'd bought, a blue Ford Taunus, far from new but not particularly rusty either. He can't hide his pride when he swings the car in and opens the passenger door and invites me to climb in with just a nod. Gábriel has neither a car nor a driver's license: this is Lukas's own thing, and he has worked a long time to be able to afford the driving lessons, keeping it a secret the whole time.

I have packed some essentials in an old military backpack, not sure what to expect. Left a note for Mama on the kitchen table:
Celebrating the day with Lukas. Don't worry.
Regret the last sentence, but it's too late now.

It is oppressive and tense in the car. Lukas has an air of determination rather than expectation. So clean-shaven, as though the hair on his face hasn't started to grow yet. A white nylon shirt in honor of the day. I recognize it, it is Gábriel's. My neck is itching with sweat, but Lukas himself looks completely cool, or rather cold. Coldness as another way of saying I'm on fire? The gift lies unopened on the dashboard, a minimal package with a curly ribbon that has loosened in the heat. He has forgotten to say happy birthday. It can only be a piece of jewelry, and to receive a piece of jewelry from Lukas seems quite remarkable. I am happy as long as he doesn't give it to me, just leaves it there.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Where have you always wanted to go?”

“The Atlantic?”

He must know that.

“Don't spoil it all now!” he answers, irritated. I should have guessed . . . He asked me to pack for one night, not for a week.

“Tivoli?” I say hurriedly. Now he doesn't reply, just speeds up along the highway, looking purposeful.

—

As soon as I climb out of the car I hear music from Tivoli in the distance, shrieks of panic and euphoria, the music of a barrel organ, speeded up. How long has he been planning this? Saving up to take the car over on the ferry and down the coast road to Copenhagen, paying for the entrance, the restaurant, and then the hotel. Neither of us has been so far away before, especially not him. Courage and money, where did he get them? He brings bill after bill out of his jeans pocket until I dare not point at anything I like, frightened of ruining him.

The only thing in the city we see is Tivoli, but that in itself is almost too much. I love it. Lukas resigns himself to it. Soon has had as much as he can stomach and is content to stand below and watch. The throng of people and level of noise seem to paralyze him.

I ride alone in and out of the demon's mouth, spinning backward in a terrifying whirligig, a whirlwind at a manic pace. The centrifugal force, the speed of the funfair, the cotton-candy kick: I feel as though I am an electrified giant baby with no control over up and down. It doesn't matter, no one knows me here. I let go and let my skirt fly, my laughter, my hair, faster, higher, more, climbing, hanging, shrieking. Then to be sucked backward out of myself, catapulted away from Lukas, to open my eyes and see him disappear.

I must have been born for this, to travel at speed and be flung out into a bigger place. Spin around among the deadly sins, ava-rice-arro-gance-lust-ful-ness. How am I ever going to be able to go back down to earth . . . be satisfied with firm ground under my feet again?

At long last I have to be. The lights of the amusement park are turned off and it is emptied, and we are tossed out into the world beyond, which I have forgotten exists.

Lukas looks resolute as we find our way to the hotel after midnight, until eventually we're sitting on the double bed after what seemed like an eternity of checking-in procedures and suspicious looks from the staff in the lobby.

“Like, what did they think?” I ask and drop, exhausted, full-length onto the bed. Lukas is silent for some time. Then:

“Shall we dance?”

—

He finds music on the all-night radio, produces two beers from the little cocktail cabinet and plastic glasses that he fills to the brim. Normally he drinks from the bottle, but this is not a normal occasion; he seems to have thought of everything. The beer looks as though it is made for children, with elephants on the label. I am cross-eyed with tiredness, and he must be even more exhausted because he didn't have time to sleep after his night shift. But he looks more tense than tired as he sweeps me around in the dance. I feel the music in his hips, feel him connecting with the music in a physical way that I don't. Seems to absorb it through his body while I listen to it at most. He is good at dancing, but nevertheless it is hard to stop myself . . . I am ready to burst out laughing because he looks so serious. Particularly when the music changes tempo and expression and becomes softer. Soon I lose control, the giggle grows into a fit of laughter. Lukas doesn't laugh, continues to look very serious, and I try to stop but only manage to half suppress it. He holds me harder. The music is slow, suggestive and sensual. It feels wrong, somehow doesn't suit us. I can't relax.

I've had the best birthday of my life, but now I just want to sleep. The beer and tiredness and music and ferry that is still swaying under my feet and the spinning top that I rode on seven times seven times, my ears are ringing, the noise increases every time I take a gulp of beer.

“Don't drink any more,” says Lukas. But I'm not drunk. I feel horribly sober.

—

I'm woken at daybreak by the pigeons making a noise in the gutter outside the window. With the sensation of Tivoli still in my body, like giddiness between a dream and a nightmare. My lips are swollen, my head heavy. The clock radio next to the hotel pillow is showing ten past six, my back is cold, Lukas is no longer lying behind me. When I lift myself onto my elbows to listen for the toilet I see that his sneakers and his hoodie are gone from beside the door. He is always tired in the mornings, and I can't for the life of me imagine what could have tempted him out so early. Possibly he hadn't fallen asleep next to me last night as I thought, but got up again and went out, and . . . what then? He would never leave me alone here.

The presents are on the bedside table, the perfume Escape and the silver heart with two hands, barbed wire, and a burning flame. I'm still full of all the strange things I stuffed myself with yesterday. My mouth tastes of last night's cotton candy. My clothes are in an untidy heap on the floor. I have no memory of undressing, but I had been so beside myself with tiredness and still am. Pull the cover over my head, try to sleep while I wait. Let the hours go by.